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September 24, 2008

Attorney General Jerry Brown today announced that he’s suing (.pdf) five baby-furniture manufacturers because their products, ranging from cribs to changing tables, contain unlabeled and potentially high levels of formaldehyde. That means dozing Junior could be inhaling unhealthy levels of the stuff found in embalming solutions.

Prop. 65 suits like this one have long been a favorite of the attorney general’s office, which has successfully pursued manufacturers of lead-laden candy, lead-laden jewelry and lead-laden soda bottles. State prosecutors and private plaintiffs secured Prop. 65 settlements totaling more than $11.8 million last year, according to the AG’s office (.pdf).

In the current case, Brown is seeking civil penalties of up to $2,500 for each day of violations.

August 22, 2008

Jerry Brown is nothing if not unpredictable. But even the one-of-a-kind attorney general had to raise a few eyebrows when he allowed tort reformers to throw a fund-raiser for him this week.

Californians for Civil Justice Reform, the political action committee operated by the Civil Justice Association of California, hosted the shindig Wednesday evening at the tony Firehouse restaurant in Old Sacramento.

CJAC President John Sullivan downplayed the event as a simple gathering, no different than other fund-raisers the PAC has held for legislative leaders. “It’s just a chance to get together with them and hear what they have to say,” Sullivan said.

August 11, 2008

Proposition 8: “Eliminates Right of Same-Sex Couples to Marry.” That’s the ballot label voters will see at the polls on Nov. 4.

After the Third District Court of Appeal ruled against them in a one-sentence opinion issued late Friday, Prop 8 supporters said today that they won’t ask the Supreme Court to re-write the title they consider prejudicial.

“We intend to leave the final outcome to voters,” said Jennifer Kerns, a spokeswoman for the Yes on 8 campaign. The decision is a win for Attorney General Jerry Brown, whose office wrote the Prop 8 title and summary (.pdf).

The fight over Prop 8 now shifts to the race for campaign cash. The Yes on 8 campaign reported receiving a staggering $1.1 million in contributions between Friday and Sunday, according to the Secretary of State’s Web site. Five attorneys donated $5,000 each to the Yes side last week: William Bunker, a partner with Knobbe Martens Olson & Bear in Orange County; Ronald Packard of Packard, Packard & Johnson in Los Altos; a D. Walton of (we’re wondering if this might be Jones Hall) in Walnut Creek; Gregory Weeks from Rancho Santa Fe; and Dean Criddle, a partner in Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe’s San Francisco office.

The No on 8 campaign disclosed more than $214,000 over the last three days, including $5,000 from attorney Joan Mack of Caldwell Leslie & Proctor in Los Angeles.

August 07, 2008

Provocative? Yes. Hyperbole? Probably. Fodder for re-wording? Not so much.

That seemed to sum up the feelings of Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Timothy Frawley after a long Thursday afternoon of hearing challenges to the proposed ballot title, summary and arguments for Proposition 8 (.pdf).

Frawley said he’ll have a final decision on various Prop 8 petitions Friday, but at a hearing packed with lawyers, reporters and supporters and opponents of the November measure to ban gay marriage, the judge appeared reluctant to make the wholesale language changes that critics on both sides are seeking.

“For the most part, the arguments are not objectively false and misleading,” no more than the typical campaign “hyperbole,” Frawley said.

Prop 8 supporters, you’ll recall, despise the ballot label that Attorney General Jerry Brown slapped on the measure: “Eliminates Right of Same Sex Couples to Marry.” Pro-8 attorney Andrew Pugno called the words “eliminates” and “right … to marry” value-laden. But Frawley didn’t seem to be buying the argument.

“It is the law currently in the state of California, correct?” the judge said. “What if the attorney general had used the word ‘restore?’” — as in restoring California’s previous ban on same-sex marriage — “That’s just as ‘value-laden’ as the word ‘eliminate’ isn’t it?”

Frawley didn’t seem eager either to go along with opponents’ request to edit supporters’ ballot argument that the failure of Prop 8* “will force teachers to teach young children there is no difference between gay marriage and traditional marriage.”

Whatever the judge decides, he’ll have to do so quickly. The state printer has said that he needs to the final language by close of business Monday so that he can mail sample ballots to California voters before the election.

— Cheryl Miller

*Edited, adding "the failure of" to fix an obvious error, per the first comment below. (thanks, skr!)

August 05, 2008

Jerry Brown isn’t exactly calling Prop. 8 supporters liars. But he comes pretty darn close in arguments filed with the Sacramento County Superior Court late Monday.

Backers of Prop. 8, the November initiative that would ban same-sex marriage, are suing Brown, claiming that the “negative, transitive active” ballot title his office prepared — “Eliminates Right of Same-Sex Couples to Marry” — effectively editorializes against the measure. In fact, Prop. 8 supporters said, they scoured 50 years of initiative titles and couldn’t find a single one that started with “eliminates.”

Jerry Brown

Well, attorneys in the AG’s office said they did a minutes-long word search and found two past California propositions that included the word “eliminates” in their titles. Granted, those titles didn’t begin with the word “eliminates,” but no matter, Brown said. “There is no factual basis to argue that the title and summary for Proposition 8 is so radically different from past practice as to suggest bias,” Brown wrote. “Certainly, petitioner cannot even hope to meet the legal standard of demonstrative by "clear and convincing proof” that the title and summary and ballot label are false, misleading or otherwise violate the Elections Code.”

Brown also threw in this interesting tidbit: “Petitioner asserts that Proposition 8 would affect the recognition of marriages already entered into by same-sex couples … (T)he attorney general believes that petitioner is incorrect ….”

There are a lot of differing legal opinions about what will happen to recent same-sex marriages should Prop. 8 pass — CalLaw rounded them up in May . But the fact that the AG — a very possible gubernatorial candidate — says they’ll remain valid will surely rally Prop. 8 foes.

All this arguing over ballot language goes before Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Timothy Frawley on Thursday. In the meantime, you can read all the arguments at the court’s Web site by searching in the case index under Jansson v. Bowen.

July 30, 2008

Attorney General Jerry Brown is
suing the federal EPA again, this time for ignoring California’s pleas to
regulate greenhouse gas emissions from ships, airplanes and industrial
equipment.

Brown is scheduled to host a press
gaggle Thursday morning in Long
Beach to tout his lawsuit, which he insists was brought
about by the EPA’s failure to answer any of his three petitions for regulatory
help stemming back to October 2007. Brown in a statement called “pathetically weak”
an EPA “advanced notice of rulemaking” published on July
11.

“The EPA’s proposal contains
hundreds of pages of discussion and facts but never once states that greenhouse
gases endanger public health or welfare -- the legal foundation for fashioning
regulations,” Brown, a potential candidate for governor in 2010, said in a
prepared statement.

Brown already sued the EPA in December
2007 after it denied California’s request to impose new rules on
greenhouse gas emissions from cars.

EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson
said earlier this month that it would be too cumbersome to try to regulate
greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act and urged Congress to draft new
regulations – effectively punting the issue to the next presidential
administration. Which begs the question: Given the proverbial slow-turning
wheels of justice, why doesn’t Brown just wait six months until a new, almost
assuredly more receptive president is sworn into office? No doubt Brown will be
asked that very question Thursday morning.